“James Lovelock, the father of the Gaia theory, says that we can't stop global warming. Many of us will die but humanity will continue, he said, but with fewer people. Lovelock believes that what we are doing is too little and too late. He was particularly pessimistic about the 'cap and trade' idea, which will make money for a small group of people, but will not do anything about the real problem.”
“You probably know that more than 90% of all life forms that have existed are now
extinct. Why should we think that our human species should go on forever?”
“OK already! But Wreck, What do you know about the possible cooling effects of some atmospheric elements? I understand that ammonium sulfate particles can reflect heat back away from the Earth. The ammonia released from some agricultural activities such as from fertilizers and animal waste can combine with sulfur, such as is released when coal is burned. At least that's what I understood from some studies done at Harvard University.” (21)
“That’s true. The preliminary investigation results have been forwarded to the United Nations’ IPCC for further investigation. If it is true, the computer models on warming would need to be changed. But it doesn’t change the fact that warming is occurring. It may only indicate why it is not occurring faster.
“I don’t know if you read the United Nations report based on an analysis of 400 peer-reviewed scientific studies that projected there would be a 6°C rise in temperature by the end of this century if we don’t make severe cuts in our emissions. They went on to say that if the US and Western Europe cut their emissions by 80% and the developing world cut theirs by 50% the increase might only be 3°.”
I’m sure you are all familiar with the intergovernmental project on climate change which brings together the world’s leading climate scientists and experts. It concluded that major advances in climate modeling and the collection and analysis of data now give scientists very high confidence, at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct, in their understanding of how human activities are causing the world to warm. This level of confidence is much greater than the IPCC indicated in their last report in 2001. It is highly likely that humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases have caused most of the global temperature rise observed since the mid-20th century. The report said that the effect of human activity on the planetary temperature is five times greater than the effect of the sun’s activity.
“Ice coring research gives us records going back 10,000 years. They show the dramatic increase in greenhouse gases from the time of the industrial revolution in 1750. An increase of about 3° Celcius, which is about 6° Fahrenheit, is expected this century. While the Earth’s surface temperature has only risen 0.74°C, it should now rise about 0.2°C per decade.
“Some climate skeptics point to the increased snowfall on the eastern seaboard in 2010 as evidence that global warming was not occurring. But the fact is that climate scientists had already confirmed that more rain and snow could be expected because of warming. Over the last few decades the amount of water vapor in the air has increased by 4%. I understand that that is about 500,000,000 tons of water. It comes from
evaporation from oceans, lakes and reservoirs, from water used in irrigation, from the burning of fossil fuels-- which all break down into various amounts of carbon dioxide and water, and from other industrial factors. So with the increase in water vapor you can understand how when the weather does cool down there is more vapor in the air and the cooler air can’t handle as much water as warmer air, so it comes down in the form of rain or snow.
”Well if water vapor is helping to raise the temperature, why does it get cool?”
”There are lots of other things that affect weather. The flows of cold or warm air and the shifting of high and low pressure areas greatly affect the day-to-day weather. So does the length of the day. In winter in the Northern Hemisphere the days are shorter so there is less sunlight per 24-hour period, consequently less heat from the sun can arrive on the Earth’s surface. Of course the lower angle of the winter sun also reduces the amount of heat landing on the northern hemispheric land. Then there is the El Nino effect which arises in the Pacific Ocean every few years. It brings more moisture to the West Coast and the southern US and increases the rainfall there. But it also can affect the jet streams pushing them eastward and southward and increasing the rain, snow, and cold weather
further east and south. The increased warmth near the Great Lakes increases the
evaporation of the water so that more water in the atmosphere will create heavier snows. But in the long run with more warming, it will become rain rather than snow. So there are many influences on the weather. The greenhouse gases are only part of the equation--but a very important part.
“You probably know about water vapor being about twice as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. But the amount of water vapor increases as the temperature increases from the greenhouse effect of the other gases such as carbon
dioxide and methane. For every degree Celsius that the temperature warms, water vapor
is increased by 6 to 7.5%. So any atmospheric warming caused by greenhouse gases
increases the warming even more through the increase in water vapor.
“It’s really very complicated, but like my old professor said ‘if you don’t know everything you don’t know anything.’ Certainly the climate scientists are closer to knowing everything while the deniers are closer to not knowing anything. When you have the big business people, like the coal and oil companies, putting huge amounts of money into think tanks like the Cato Institute, you can expect strong denials but no solid evidence to back their claims. It’s politics versus science. The short-term interests of business versus the long-term survival of the people on the planet.”
“It's like what we talked about when we were talking of propaganda, people who can gain by pooh-poohing the idea of climate change will look to find any twig that they can make others believe is a tree. When the scientists who are most involved in the research on global temperature, like the climatologists, are held to be inferior to the desires of business interests or religious ideals we have a problem. In the US a recent survey of over 3000 scientists involved in the study of climate found 99% agreed that human activity was a cause of global warming. (22)
“But presidential aspirant Sarah Palin called all of the scientific evidence ‘snake oil’, referring to the nostrums that quacks in the 1800s used to sell as elixers that could cure anything. Of course she didn’t cite any evidence to counter the massive evidence on the other side. But then politicians don’t need evidence when they are preaching to their choirs.”